Selected Poems

by Wilmer,Clive

• ISBN13: 9780415940795
• ISBN10: 0415940796
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-04-12
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

For critics like John Ruskin and Walter Pater, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1892) was one of the great creative figures of the day, a painter and a poet of major stature. Yeats and the young Pound regarded him as an exemplary figure of solitary dedication to art and beauty. Rossetti's most original work may have been in preparing the way for the modernists, who in turn dethroned him. He called the sonnet 'a moment's monument', and his best short lyrics are instants of oppressed emotion cut free of time. In this, as in the suggestiveness of his imagery, he anticipates the French Symbolists. He can also be regarded as the founder of modern verse translation, not only for the freshness of his versions but also for his choice of poets---Villon, Cavalcanti and the young Dante. In this selection, Clive Wilmer has made a personal choice, emphasizing the 'pure poetry' of the lyrics at the expense of the more conventionally Victorian monologues and narratives. He has also included a generousselection from the translations, and provided a biographical and critical introduction.

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(15)
Note on the text	22	(1)
Suggestions for further reading	22	(1)
from The House of Life	23	(20)
The Blessed Damozel	43	(4)
My Sister s Sleep	47	(2)
Ave	49	(4)
The Portrait	53	(3)
The Card-Dealer	56	(2)
Jenny	58	(11)
A Trip to Paris and Belgium	69	(5)
Near Brussels-a Half-way Pause	74	(1)
Antwerp and Bruges	75	(5)
Sonnets on Pictures
For Our Lady o f the Rocks (Leonardo)	76	(1)
For A Venetian Pastoral (Giorgione)	76	(1)
For An Allegorical Dance of Women (Mantegna)	77	(1)
For Ruggiero and Angelica (Ingres)	77	(2)
For A Virgin and Child (Memmelinck)	79	(1)
Sister Helen	80	(8)
Dawn on the Night-Journey	88	(1)
A Young Fir-wood	89	(1)
The Mirror	89	(1)
During Music	90	(1)
The Honeysuckle	91	(1)
Sudden Light	91	(1)
The Woodspurge	92	(1)
Even So	92	(1)
A Little While	93	(1)
Sunset Wings	94	(1)
Three Shadows	95	(3)
Verses for Rossetti's own works of art
Aspecta Medusa	97	(1)
Astarte Syriaca	97	(1)
Spheral Change	98	(1)
`I saw the Sibyl at Cumae'	98	(1)
The Orchard-Pit	99	(48)
TRANSLATIONS
from Dante and His Circle
St Francis of Assisi	100	(1)
Frederick II	101	(2)
Guido Guinicelli	103	(3)
Giacomino Pugliesi	106	(2)
Ubaldo di Marco	108	(1)
Folgore da San Geminiano	109	(7)
Pier Moronelli	116	(3)
Niccolo degli Albizzi	119	(1)
Dante Alighieri	119	(12)
Guido Cavalcanti	131	(9)
Cino da Pistoia	140	(3)
Poems from the French
Anon: `John of Tours'	143	(1)
Francois Villon	144	(3)
Index of Titles and First Lines	147